The goals of this core are to support Center investigators in extending the refining research related to sociocultural environments for women's health begun during the first years of CWHR activities and to enhance Center investigators' capacity to study diverse populations of women in culturally competent ways, including the development. of community partnerships for research. Two processes will be used to achieve these goals: developing socially/culturally relevant methods and measures and facilitating their use by Center investigators and affiliates. The specific aims of this research support core include several efforts to enhance understanding of the relationships between gender, ethnicity, class, and health and integrating these considerations into ongoing work, in particular: 1. Enhancing the capacity of Center investigators and affiliates to select appropriate measures and designs for studying social and cultural dimensions of women's lives as they relate to health. 2. Automating data collection, transformation, and management of measures commonly used by Center investigators and affiliates to facilitate collecting data that reflect social and cultural contexts of women's lives; 3. Providing consultation regarding use of existing databases and expansion of databases by Center Investigators and affiliates to enhance study of the relationships among gender, ethnicity, class and health; 4. Supporting investigators to modify approaches to measurement and research designs to enhance the appropriateness and acceptability of projects to special populations, such as women from underrepresented ethnic groups; 5. Creating a panel of consultants to support Center investigators and affiliates in developing research with specific populations, such as Native American and older women; 6. Increasing investigators' awareness of and access to population data bases from the state, region, city and county to support: analyses of health trends among selected populations, for example, African American, Asian American/Pacific Islander, Native American, poor, and elderly women; and identification of target areas of the state and selected communities for inclusion in studies conducted by the Center investigators and affiliates; 7. Networking with local and regional community groups to facilitate collaboration in setting research priorities, participation in study design from development of the aims through interpretation of the data and development of community advisory panels to guide the development of research projects.